Bloomberg: Apple Close To Bringing Time Warner Cable To Apple TV

Apple is close to securing a deal that will bring Time Warner Cable subscribers access to their cable television service through the Apple TV, according to sources with knowledge of the company’s plans, who have been speaking to Bloomberg.

The two companies are expected to announce the deal “within a few months.”

If Apple manages to secure the deal, Time Warner Cable would be the first cable service to debut on the Apple TV — though it’s unlikely that it would be the last. Apple is said to be seeking new ways to bolster sales of the $99 set-top box amid increasing competition from devices like the Roku, and even Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

And one way to do that will be to get as many cable companies as it can on board.

“It’s not necessary for Apple to remake the media industry to sell a great TV product,” Benedict Evans, an analyst at Enders Analysis in London, told Bloomberg. “They are methodically adding to Apple TV.”

The deal would also indicate that Apple is willing to work with existing pay-TV business models to bring cable services to the Apple TV, rather than directly offering live TV programming. Reports have claimed the company would prefer the latter, but the media companies have been reluctant to enter into this type of arrangement for fear of damaging cable and satellite sales.

Other rumors have suggested that Apple is also working on its own television, which could launch as early as this year. CEO Tim Cook fueled that speculation last month when he said during a D11 interview that TV was of “intense interest” to Apple.

About the author:

Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.

Market_Mayhem

I don’t know why they’re making such a big deal out of it. TimeWarner Cable is already on Roku and all they did was make one small announcement and the next thing I knew it was there. It’s really not all that great because you can’t record anything with the Roku. I still have to go to the cable box to set up recording. Roku is no slouch of a box and because it supports PLEX, I consider the Roku3 way ahead of AppleTV.

jpaul

Interesting development…

Say market_mayhem, is there an easy way to turn on the closed captioning on that Roku box? From what I’ve seen, you have to go through all sorts of menus, whereas on the Apple TV, it’s one button and select, and it’s on. So, you can quickly turn CC on and off!

Roku’s latest interface also comes with ads!! You have to see this humongous come-on that takes up most of the right side of the screen– the ad box is 6x as big as the channel icons. It’s a step backwards.

In any event, the writer here makes a good point–you’d only need one remote to do it all! You can have your cable and eat it, too! (Of course, famous last words. Usually, the supposed one-remote solution ends up as anything but!)——————————To the website master– if one writes a comment and then signs in, it returns you here with the comment *DELETED*!! Not a good design at all. Many other sites preserve your comments while they log you in! Please fix. Thanks!